{"id":27326,"date":"2018-10-09T07:30:47","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T11:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=27326"},"modified":"2018-10-09T07:30:47","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T11:30:47","slug":"a-brief-salute-to-editors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=27326","title":{"rendered":"A Brief Salute to Editors"},"content":{"rendered":"

My hat goes off to editors. Their work is amazing; a great editor understands an author’s vision and\u00a0works to help him or her realize\u00a0that vision by asking the right questions at the right time\u00a0and making suggestions\u00a0that spark a creative response. Great editors have enough distance from a project to consider it, if not objectively, then with a\u00a0particular kind of outside perspective that can be enormously helpful. They are not only the stand-ins for future readers, noting where a passage is muddy or out of place and likely to confound an audience, but they attend to both minute details\u2014suspect grammar,\u00a0awkward\u00a0word choice\u2014as well as overarching concerns of theme,\u00a0structure, arc, etc. They navigate tricky waters,\u00a0rowing away from what might be\u00a0personal preference to shape a manuscript in a certain direction,\u00a0and toward\u00a0professional support of\u00a0an author’s intention.\u00a0Editors\u00a0are\u00a0also a project’s most resilient cheerleader. And they do all of this with very little external acknowledgment; the public rarely knows whose skilled and thoughtful analysis has guided a manuscript to its best form.
\n
\nMuch of this work happens on\u00a0an editor’s own time. Gone are the days when\u00a0editors could spend\u00a0a significant portion of the work day absorbed in\u00a0manuscripts; now,\u00a0those days are jam-packed with production and scheduling\u00a0meetings, sales conferences, rights discussions, wrangling endless mountains of emails, communicating with agents, authors, and department colleagues.\u00a0Actual editing often has to happen outside of work, wherever an editor can find some quiet time to read, reflect, question and comment.
\nThanks to all of you hard-working, brilliant editors who pour your passion and expertise into so many beautiful projects, many of which never\u00a0bear or mention your names. Please know that you are greatly appreciated by anyone who knows anything about the making of books!
\nWe’d love to hear from some of our author readers: What is the best question or piece of advice your editor has ever offered?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nAnd now, as a silly end note, I offer up British comedic duo Mitchell & Webb<\/a>‘s short sketch of an author-editor meeting, “Write This … Or That:”
\n